Tiivistelmä

The thesis examines the phenomenon of social movements in general and the modern environmental movement in specific. After an overall analysis of the environmental movement, the focus of the study shifts to the environmental movement in the context of New Zealand. The bulk of the New Zealand specific research material is composed of publications of the country's environmental groups and of country's current environmental legislation.

The object of the study is twofold. On the one hand the aim was to explore the implications of social movement activity to a society's prevalent institutional order. On the other hand the study aims at examining the main features of social movement institutionalisation and to seek evidence of this process in the case of New Zealand.

The general methodological and analytical framework chosen for this study is social constructivism, which upholds an understanding of our social reality as being a sum of ongoing social processes, of peoples' social interaction. As a more specific method of analysis the thesis applies the theory of speech acts, based on the view of language as a functional rather than as a merely descriptive element.

As an overall hypothesis of the study one could identify the assumption that environmental movement in New Zealand has been subject to a process of social movement institutionalisation and this has implications to its activities and influence in the country. The theoretical framework is based on the social movement theory, which offers insight into the process of movement institutionalisation.

The main findings of the thesis, as regards the implications of social movement activity to the societies' institutional order, are that social movements take part in the processes that construct social reality by virtue of producing social knowledge and they can thus as socially constructive forces with potential to bring about change in the social construction of reality and the prevalent institutional order. As for the environmental movement institutionalisation in New Zealand, the findings are twofold. The movement's access points to the political system have increased significantly, but it has also become increasingly difficult for the environmental movement to get its voice heard in a situation where environmentalist values and concerns already appear to be everywhere.